Mor Temor
Arch. Mor Temor is international Architecture firm committed to designing unique buildings and one of a kind architectural concepts.
2.10 Kingdom Floating Bridge
The London Docklands are characterized by vast areas of water. New pedestrian bridge were recently completed including a 90 m floating bridge at West India Quay which resembles a ‘pond skater’ and brings people closer to the water as shown in fig. 19 (Gardner, 1994). This is an elegant solution to site problems: a condition of the competition was that no loads be imposed on the waterfront at the two ends. The use of pontoons avoids this, and requires only light-tension piles to be driven underwater to secure them. The use of pontoons allowed the bridge to be fabricated off-site under controlled conditions and floated upstream into position (see Fig. 20) (Dawson, 1996).
Permanent pontoon bridges are rare, partly because of their instability under applied loads; they bob up and down as people walk on them. The problem is resolved at West India Quay by tying down the bridge to tension piles in the dock bottom. Loads on the deck relieve the tie forces without driving down the floats (Laurence, 2002).
Fig. 19 West India Quay Footbridge,United Kingdom.
Fig. 20 The use of pontoons allowed the bridge to be fabricated off-site and floated upstream into position.
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